1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved manufacturing process control system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a computer implemented method, system, and computer usable program code for automatically adjusting inventory based on a loaner part inventory analysis and order demands and forecasts.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, manufacturers are always in a state of flux, which is caused by assembling and disassembling vast numbers of specialized products. Manufacturers assemble these specialized products to the customer-defined configuration requirements of product orders. Disassembling these specialized products may result from various events, such as, for example, returned products built for failure analysis testing, returned products built as loaners to other departments within the manufacturing company during a warranty period, or products that were used and returned by customers.
A problem encountered by manufacturers is determining an accurate part inventory that not only includes new parts, but also includes these returned used and loaner parts to inventory. In addition, another problem encountered by manufacturers is keeping track of order demands produced by external customer orders, as well as internal department orders, and forecasting future order demands to determine part purchasing requirements.
For example, situations arise where new parts, which were utilized in a loaner program and are still under warranty, may no longer be used to build future loaner machine orders. In addition, used parts may not be used to build future new customer machine orders. Thus, the inventory required to ensure that the right number of parts are purchased to fill all order demand types within a specified time period is critical to manufacturing planning.
Currently, no manufacturing planning system has the capability to ensure that demand coverage is against specific inventory categories, such as new, used, and loaner parts. Also, no automated planning process presently exists to allow for segmentation of new, used, and loaner parts to have inventory available for future order demands. Because there is a current lack of automatic inventory segmentation, significant manually intensive planning work is required of manufacturing personnel. Moreover, ineffective management of these returned used and loaner parts to inventory results.
Therefore, it would be beneficial to have an improved computer implemented method, system, and computer usable program code for analyzing used and loaner part inventory and utilizing this analysis to determine which parts are required to be purchased.